The Sisters Tragedy | Page 7

the end!
Ah, if in coming times?Some giant evil arise,?And Honor falter and pale,?His were a name to conjure with!?God send his like again!
INTERLUDES
ECHO-SONG
I
Who can say where Echo dwells?
In some mountain-cave, methinks,?Where the white owl sits and blinks;?Or in deep sequestered dells,?Where the foxglove hangs its bells,
Echo dwells.
Echo!
Echo!
II
Phantom of the crystal Air,
Daughter of sweet Mystery!?Here is one has need of thee;?Lead him to thy secret lair,?Myrtle brings he for thy hair--
Hear his prayer,
Echo!
Echo!
III
Echo, lift thy drowsy head,
And repeat each charmed word?Thou must needs have overheard?Yestere'en ere, rosy-red,?Daphne down the valley fled--
Words unsaid,
Echo!
Echo!
IV
Breathe the vows she since denies!
She hath broken every vow;?What she would she would not now--?Thou didst hear her perjuries.?Whisper, whilst I shut my eyes,
Those sweet lies,
Echo!
Echo!
A MOOD
A blight, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness-- Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness; A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's insistence; A sense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone existence; A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken-- Such hurt perchance as Nature feels when a blossomed bough is broken.
GUILIELMUS REX
The folk who lived in Shakespeare's day?And saw that gentle figure pass?By London Bridge, his frequent way--?They little knew what man he was.
The pointed beard, the courteous mien,?The equal port to high and low,?All this they saw or might have seen--?But not the light behind the brow!
The doublet's modest gray or brown,?The slender sword-hilt's plain device,?What sign had these for prince or clown??Few turned, or none, to scan him twice.
Yet 'twas the king of England's kings!?The rest with all their pomps and trains?Are mouldered, half-remembered things--?'Tis he alone that lives and reigns!
"PILLARED ARCH AND SCULPTURED TOWER"
Pillared arch and sculptured tower?Of Ilium have had their hour;?The dust of many a king is blown?On the winds from zone to zone;?Many a warrior sleeps unknown.?Time and Death hold each in thrall,?Yet is Love the lord of all;?Still does Helen's beauty stir?Because a poet sang of her!
THRENODY
I
Upon your hearse this flower I lay.?Brief be your sleep! You shall be known?When lesser men have had their day:?Fame blossoms where true seed is sown,?Or soon or late, let Time wrong what it may.
II
Unvext by any dream of fame,?You smiled, and bade the world pass by:?But I--I turned, and saw a name?Shaping itself against the sky--?White star that rose amid the battle's flame!
III
Brief be your sleep, for I would see?Your laurels--ah, how trivial now?To him must earthly laurel be?Who wears the amaranth on his brow!?How vain the voices of mortality!
SESTET
SENT TO A FRIEND WITH A VOLUME OF TENNYSON
Wouldst know the clash of knightly steel on steel??Or list the throstle singing loud and clear??Or walk at twilight by some haunted mere?In Surrey; or in throbbing London feel?Life's pulse at highest--hark, the minster's peal! . . .?Turn but the page, that various world is here!
A TOUCH OF NATURE
When first the crocus thrusts its point of gold?Up through the still snow-drifted garden mould,?And folded green things in dim woods unclose?Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes?Into my veins and makes me kith and kin?To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows.?Sitting beside this crumbling sea-coal fire,?Here in the city's ceaseless roar and din,?Far from the brambly paths I used to know,?Far from the rustling brooks that slip and shine?Where the Neponset alders take their glow,?I share the tremulous sense of bud and